2 Timothy 2:16

Ver. 16. Here, again, the apostle returns to the things to be avoided the corrupt practices of false teachers: But profane babblings shun περιΐστασο, stand aloof from, as one naturally does in respect to any object of dislike or terror. It was used at Titus 3:9, much in the same way, with reference to unprofitable questions about the law, genealogies, and such like contentions. See also at 1 Timothy 6:20, where profane babblings are mentioned as things which Timothy should turn away from. Here it is added, by way of strengthening the exhortation, for they will advance to more of ungodliness; which the succeeding context shows must be understood of the persons who teach the profane babblings, not of the babblings themselves. The sense also requires this; for it is only the teachers of such things, of whom a forward movement in the wrong direction could justly be predicated. But readily enough of them: for exhibiting, as they did, a relish for modes of thought and discourse which could be characterized as at once empty and profane, their downward progress might be reckoned on as certain; the rather so, as now the great moral earnestness which appeared in the true teachers of the gospel would reflect unfavourably upon them, and almost inevitably drive them into extravagances of a more startling and pernicious kind.